/sci/ - Science & Math

Don't even think about becoming a good teacher. You will be disillusioned very quickly. Be prepared to be confronted with utter idiocy. In each class you will have at most one or two students who understand what you're teaching. The rest is retards who rely on your benevolence to let them pass even though they failed to comprehend the basics.

>>6227363
This. 11th Grade Chemistry is one of the most boring classes I ever took in high school. Try to make it actually interesting, and don't bitch about sigfigs for over half the course.

Why don't you work on being the biggest douchebag teacher of all times?

For example:
- Never repeat contents in class. Expect everyone to get it the first time.
- Give extraordinarily hard and long homework.
- Make your exams even harder than the homework.
- Verbally humiliate students who give wrong answers.
- When a student gets everything right but makes one little typo, downgrade him from A to B.
- Answer every question with "You should know this already" or "Look it up on your own".

if you're stuck with a standardized curriculum you're probably fucked.

the best teachers are encouraging and involved. look for the cool shit in the field; stimulating interest does far more than just hammering material into children.

if they're continually doing problems out of a textbook they're never going to care. show them some reactions, even if it's a youtube video on a projector

>>6227376
So your average professor

OP here

>>6227376
I loled
>>6227381
agreed.
>>6227363
someone needs a glass half full of optimism I think.

Don't lecture.
We made tie-dye and ice cream in my chem class.
Also we got our hands on some liquid nitrogen and froze and threw shit at walls.

Stimulate the kids who actually give a shit. For most people chemistry and math is about getting a good grade, but for others its about making use of the educational system to learn something they actually care about. My favorite teachers are the ones that can answer questions about why what they're teaching is true, and usually answer by writing out and explaining how the quadratic formula can be derived by completing the square or stating the complicated evidence we have regarding the modern atomic model. Obviously you shouldn't bore the valuable learners with memorizing who made the octet rule, but don't be afraid to engage in discussions about how they logically came to their contributions.

Also, don't try to control your students. Accept them as they are if they can accept you.

Be like walter white.

>>6227376
Preparing your students for university is a good thing.

>>6227385
>>6227418
What terrible unis do you guys attend? At my uni most of the professors are bro tier.

There is no way to make chem fun.

>>6227431
I'd say going to the lab classes and doing experiments could be fun.
To be honest it's probably the only thing I could complain about high school is that we never had practical classes.

>>6227485
Experiments are tedious, boring and not intellectually stimulating.

>>6227489
Yet I seem to have fun in lab classes.
Even if the experiments are tiring.
And experiments are as intellectually stimulating as applying the theory to solve some example problem, after all, it is what you are doing.

>>6227496
>Yet I seem to have fun in lab classes.
Therefore everyone else should, if only the teachers did X. As we all know, humans are robots cast from the same mold.

>>6227431
>There is no way to make Chem E fun
Repaired it.

Chem is pretty cool, but I'm reaching second year of Chem E now, and it's been nothing but...ugh. Just ugh.

>>6227505
No, how could you not like lab classes?

For chemistry I'd suggest asking a question and having the students go into groups and try and figure them out,then have the groups do presentations and exchange information. If anyone gets it wrong then you're there to explain it. Outside group projects are great too, though difficult for chemistry.

>>6227509
I can't fall asleep on those stools

>>6227553
There it is, something I really dislike about lab classes.
The damn stools. I just stand now, it's more comfortable.

>>6227553
Just climb into a fume hood.

>>6227360
Avoid touching them.

The one thing to ask the kids is to let them try the question at the board, and tell them that if they got it wrong, then it's fine.

>>6227586
/thread

If I were ever a math teacher, I would have monthly "contests" to see who could come up with the best-looking graph on their graphing calculator (if they didn't have one, they could still try, you should have one).

Also, this may or may not apply to Chemistry, but the things I remember most from my US History class back in high school aren't from the textbook, but from him talking about it in an interesting way in class.

>>6227360
Relate the subject to real life, OP

In my chemistry class this year our teacher taught us the formulas for soap and biodiesol when he taught us about esters. We also made soap and aspirin in the lab.

We also learned how TNT can be synthesised and the formation of polyester and dyes when we learned about Benzene.

>>6227363
Way to be a dick.

>>6227360
Relate what you teach to everyday use. If you are talking about ethers, tell them diethyl ether was used frequently as a general anaesthetic.
Tell them thiols are added in propane tanks because it smells like poo.

You are probably not very old, but it would be great to add some "I remember when..." digressions aswell.